It’s that time of the year again when the children get lots of chocolate Easter Eggs. Go on admit it do you hide one away for yourself, or help yourself to some when the kids aren’t looking!

Most people like chocolate. It’s the most likely culprit for ruining our diets! We usually see chocolate as a treat for when we’ve been good, or a pick me up when we’re feeling down. We were rewarded with sweets and chocolate when we were children for being good and now we’re grown up we receive boxes for Christmas, Birthdays, you name it, you can bet you’ll receive a box of chocolates, especially when you’re trying really hard to stick to that diet.

Telling yourself that you won’t eat any chocolate today is asking for trouble. The moment you make yourself that promise, the cravings starts, go on, admit it, you weren’t even thinking of chocolate until that thought settled in your mind.

Chocolate provides some useful nutrients, but, and it’s a big but, it contains fat. Thirty per cent of the calories in chocolate come from fat and chocolate 150 calories per ounce.

A professor at the University of Birmingham says that you can’t be addicted to chocolate; he says that craving is probably a better word than addiction. Many woman find that chocolate can be very comforting just before a period, but nutritional psychologists believe that the cravings are not caused by hormonal changes, But that the cravings are triggered by mood swings, which are hormone related. Remember we don’t have to keep our bad habits, we can change them. Too much chocolate will make you fat and ruin your teeth. Chocolate is nice, but not that nice!

Here are some tips to help you change your chocolate habits

1. Eat more fruit. When you feel like some chocolate, try a piece of fruit, eventually you might find that chocolate becomes too sweet and sickly, you never know!

2. When you’re feeling down, give yourself a boost, no not the chocolate kind! Have a long soak in a scented bath, go for a refreshing swim and sauna, or go for a walk in some beautiful scenery. Make the effort, you’ll feel much better afterwards.

3. Stop worrying about chocolate. The guilt that you feel after scoffing a bar becomes part of a downward spiral, put it behind you and get back on course with that diet.